When the Inimitable Fall
by kracken23
Summary: One-shots of defining moments in the leading characters of the 100. Chapter One: of Octavia's experience of trying to warn Arkadia about the Azgeda attack (4x05).


Names had always held a sentimental significance with her. For the majority of her life, only two people had ever spoken hers. _Octavia._ She remembers the first time she heard it come from someone other than Bellamy. Even though it was during her incarceration intake process, it was special— _Octavia._

She had what one could argue was one hell of an identity crisis; she had no place on the Ark, no home on the ground, but she had a name—her identity. Her name.

Soon that would be all that was left of her, too, she thought grimly as she lay in the dirt, struggling for air.

Suddenly, she sees a face, hovering amongst the light-dappled trees above. A familiar face, but one she could not place. She thinks of the only thing this reminds her of, her first days on the ground when she oh-so-gracefully tumbled down the ravine, waking in the dark to face without a name. _Lincoln._

Her breath hitches now as it draws close to her where she lies on the forest floor. Maybe it says something, but she can't hear over the rales of her own breathing.

Then there's hands from the face, grabbing, pulling her up. Maybe the voice is still talking, but now it's drowned out by her weak groans of protest.

With an unceremonious hoist and a grunt from the figure, Octavia is slung over Helios' saddle. She manages a weak scream, further drowning out whatever the voice is reassuring her of…

…She regains consciousness only one more time, the last name she had thought still reverberating in her skull. Lincoln. His name and his journal was all he'd left behind. And the warmth in her chest, the clog in her throat every time he came to mind. And with his name came the memory of not the welcoming of his face, not of the warmth of his arms, but his smell. When she thought his name, Octavia swore she could smell the mix of damp moss and leather and sweat. The smell no one else had. The smell she had grown accustomed to when she slept, the smell that never wore down with bathing or clothing changes, the smell that meant home.

She can smell it now, as the next thought she has is how it was kind of funny, that the pain is what woke her because the pain is what was keeping her unconscious. Octavia lacks the strength to raise her head, and it rocks painfully with the rest of the motion of the horse. She stares at the ground as it passes beneath her, blinking to clear her vision. She struggles to turn her head and manages a soft _ack!_ noise.

Her eyes widen and her weak heart races a little more. A dim form has Helios by the reigns and is walking beside rather than guiding the horse—the beast knows the way. _Helios_ , god of the sun, dwelling in a golden place—much like the first time Octavia had ridden a horse—a god among men.

Of course, now is very different than the usual feeling of flight she gets when riding. She is laying across the saddle, her legs hanging to one side of the horse, her head and arms to the other, gravity painful tugging her in two directions.

"We're here." The figure says softly, bringing her back from her thoughts. There's other noises too, but it's undiscernible from the ringing in her ears.

Octavia cannot expand her vision beyond the small tunnel it is, or turn her head again, so she does not know where "here" is. They've stopped moving, though, and the confusing noises are louder. The arms are quick and rather careless as they grab her by the armpits and tug her from the horseback, smoothly turning her face up until she's totally in the arms as she weakly screams.

The voice whispers—why can she hear his whispers and nothing else?—"It's okay, take it easy. Look."

She can only look up, but past the nameless head are the black scaffolding peaks of the gates of Arkadia. _Home._

"Octavia?" Octavia wasn't sure what direction the voice was coming from now. The face and the arms and the voice were disjointed, not one single entity. She heard her name only once more, and then the narrow tunnels she was looking through tapered completely, and silence followed the darkness…

Barely above a whisper she says, _Lincoln_.

************100***********100********10***********

As Clarke performs CPR

The pain in her chest was the first thing she noted. It wasn't any more or any less than any of the pain she felt throughout the rest of her body—but it was different. Like her chest was full, about to burst, but simultaneously void. She coughed instinctively, and as the air rushed into her lungs the world washed over her.

Noise and lights and movement. An unfamiliar surface beneath her—hard and cold and unnaturally straight—metal, wasn't something she had a lot of contact with these days.

" _Get her to medical. Now."_ A hand atop her head, combing lightly through her hair. Clarke.

With the name 'Clarke' came a huge presence. A series of sharp, geometric lines formed in Octavia's mind. At the center was something small and soft, but hidden amongst the hard shapes and imaginary brinks that the Clarke in Octavia's imagination was build out to be. Octavia felt a swell of urgency, _Clarke!_ The Ice Nation. _The Ice Nation._ Octavia willed the words out of her mouth, but they would not come. Her body was confused as to what instructions she was trying to give it; she tried to speak, but all she managed was a thready inhale, which raked through her lungs. She slowly turned her head from side to side, unsure if it was still attached to her body. _They're coming._

"Hey, hey, hey, shh, it's okay. You're okay." Clarke was nose to nose with her, trying to capture her waning attention, Octavia's head gently clamped between her hands, "Octavia, you've lost a lot of blood, but you're home now. I'm gonna help you."

 _My name. I am Octavia kom skikru. I am home._

But more importantly, _They're coming._

Octavia felt like she might choke on the words if she didn't get them out soon. Clark still compassionately pet her hair. Other movement happened beside them.

 _No! Speak. Say it, say 'they're coming'. But who's 'they'? Give them their name._ In her mind, a hazy image was becoming sharper, more dangerous, more lethal—a sword against its whetting stone. "Azgeda's coming…"

Finally. And with that, as disoriented and, well, dying as Octavia was, she felt the tone in the room shift.

A deeper voice behind her, "What's she talking about?"

Octavia could feel the change in pressure of Clarke's hands on her face, from affectionate to urgent.

"Azgeda is coming. Army's…marching," In the back of her mind she was jumping and ranting and raving, but in the foreground she was growing dim once again. Clarke saw it, and was gently tapping her face, then feverishly checking her pulse. She urged, "Hey, Octavia, hey, stay with me."

"War is here." Their eyes finally locked, and Octavia knew that Clarke had finally received her message. She let the darkness fall, let it numb her to the noise and the lights and the movement.

She was being lifted again…

************100***********100********10***********

There are lights, and people, and a strange air. Octavia should be warm with so many lights and people crowding her, suffocating her, but she's cold.

And for as many people that surround her, the scene is undramatically quiet.

"Okay, this side is sewed up. Let's roll her. On three—one, two, three," Clarke's authoritative voice and sharp, defined lines have Octavia open her eyes.

Hands, nameless as they were countless, are pushing and pulling Octavia from the position she is on her side to on to her back. She lets everyone know she awake, "Ahh!"

"Shh, you're okay, you're okay. Just relax." Clarke is soothing and stroking her hair.

A stranger's hands are above her, hanging a plastic bag on a metal pole, while another is tugging saturated gauze from her belly.

She's been stripped of her jacket and armor, what remained of her shirt was bunched up well above her bra. Much to Octavia's dismay, Clarke is using her hands to count broken ribs. Someone's fiddling with her waist. "Clarke, I think her hip is broken," a calm, familiar voice adds to the beeping and harsh breathing.

Clarke's face dips out of Octavia's frame of view for several seconds, her disappearance corresponding with someone suddenly manipulating her leg. Octavia doesn't scream, but clenches her teeth and begins making a low keening noise as she lets out an exhale.

"Easy, easy, Octavia, you're doing great. Can you focus? Can you tell me what happened? Who did this to you?" Clarke returns in her view. Octavia stiffly swipes at the random hands to make them stop and makes what resembles a growl. It's too much, she needs to be left alone.

Clarke takes the arm she's wielding and authoritatively returns it to Octavia's side, "Shh, lie still." She does not wait further for a response, and directs a pair of hands, "Let's get her another round of pain meds. And can you grab me a reaper stick?"

" _Ngh!"_ Octavia manages, "No, no."

Clarks meets her gaze with knowing eyes, "Octavia, you're in too much pain. I've still got to irrigate this wound, and you need an x-ray series."

"Azgeda." Octavia murmurs between her labored breaths. An arm interrupts her field of vision briefly, reaching over her to hand something to Clarke.

When their eyes meet again, "I'll take care of it." Clarke says it naturally, like she's been preparing her whole life to say that one sentence—so there is no question or doubt that she means it. It was not a reassurance or a promise, it was a fact. Octavia stares somewhat mesmerized into the older girl's eyes, even after the sharp prick of the reaper stick in her neck and the dark, quiet clouds that follows. She feels Clarke apologetically stroke her cheek, and repeat, "I'll take care of it…"

************100***********100********10***********

Clarke's POV

Clarke watched the light leave her eyes, Octavia's body finally relaxing.

Denia, a woman close to her mother's age, had drawn the x-ray scanner beside the bed, while Lindsey, an attractive young man with terrible teeth, handed Clarke a dilute bottle of sterile saline so she could flush out Octavia's wound. Niylah moved from Octavia's awkwardly turned-in knees to the head of the bed and began combing through her hair, assessing the superficial wounds that littered her scalp.

Clarke glanced at the cardio-monitor.

"She's incredibly strong." Niylah commented, fondly placing a hand on Octavia's forehead.

Clarke nodded, "She's always had to be." She understood where the comment came from—in Niylah's culture grit and turgor earned the highest respect, Octavia had no poverty of either. That was how she earned a place amongst the grounders so quickly. Clarke thought as she cleaned the wound that traversed her belly to her back; Octavia had always had an unbridled spirit. How anyone had confined her to living beneath the floorboards of the Ark was beyond her. It was beautiful in a way, Octavia's lifetime of imprisonment let her appreciate the world around her in a way no one else quite understood. How could they? How do you explain what the sun feels like to a person who'd never even seen the moon?

At the same time, Octavia had changed—like they all had—since landing. But where most people adapted to survival, Octavia had blossomed from what was already there, innate and dormant. Yes, she could be petulant and irresponsible, even now the child she never got to be would shine through at times, but Octavia was wholly selfless in her service to those she respected. She did not strictly have a clan amongst the Sky People, just as she did not have a place amongst those on the ground, and that made her unique. She was all of them. A warrior amongst mice, both a secret and a glaring fact, a child and an insightful sibling, a lover and a resenter of many things. Though she may not say it in as many words, she loved all.

Clarke flushed the wound and sutured closed. She dismissed Denia and Lindsey, "Thank you, guys. Go ahead and do your rounds." Niylah remained.

They worked quietly, but not uncomfortably, binding Octavia's six broken ribs.

Niylah lowered and smoothed out Octavia's shirt as Clarke studied her radiographs, "You're right about her hip." Clarke ran a finger over the image, tracing the cracks that ran through the head of Octavia's femur, "There's a small break here, too, in the pelvis."

"Do you have some _Skikru_ 'magic' to fix it?" It was the closest Clarke's ever head Niylah get to a joke.

"No, it'll heal on its own."

"And her other wounds?"

"It's a miracle she's alive." Clarke muttered, leaning on the cot and looking over her friend. Clarke had always thought that people on the med gurneys looked smaller than they actually were, dwarfed by their injuries and ailments. But Octavia right now didn't fit that—she filled the room. Clarke nodded, "The stab wound is stable. I'll radio my mom, but I think her intestines are intact. And her concussion seems mild, but I'll have to wait until she's fully conscious—"

"Go, Clarke." Niylah urged calmly.

"What?"

"I will sit with her. You need to go. You know you do." Niylah pressed.

"Sergeant Miller is already coming up with a plan. I need to—"

Niylah interrupted her once again, sporting her ever-serious expression, "Octavia is stable. You said it yourself. I will sit with her until you return. I can radio you if anything changes."

Clarke swallowed, thinking. Niylah was right, she did not have time to be doting on one poorly person. A brief flash of the _trishanakru_ boy carrying Octavia's body through the hanger door flashes through her mind—the dread of another dead child. Clarke shook her head. There would be indefinitely more bodies if she didn't address the warning that Octavia had sacrificed herself to bring. But Clarke was not Lexa, and she could not separate feelings from duty; it's what made her a little bit too human.

"Yeah, okay, you're right," Clarke announced. "Call me if anything changes." She gave Octavia's unmoving arm a gentle squeeze, one last look at the monitors, and strode towards the door.

************100***********100********10***********

 _Niylah._

The name flashes in the front of her mind as the image of the woman comes into focus. Octavia is immediately reminded of parallel lines and a flat, two-dimensional image; what you see is what you get. Octavia inhales painfully, her hand coming to rest on her newly bandaged wound. She presses slightly, feeling as if her organs might burst through the hole. _God, everything hurts._ Most of the pain was diffuse and spread to every inch of her, making her hyperaware of every joint and muscle fiber, torn and flexed and battered. Octavia was unnaturally accustomed to having her ass kicked, but this was different.

Her chest feels like it's been caved in. Her breathing increases as the blended, stringy thoughts begin to disentangle themselves from the knot they're in inside her brain. _Niylah._ "I have to warn them." She says it so clearly and acutely, she wonders if she's said it at all.

Niylah rests a hand on her shoulder, halting her instinctive, albeit half-hearted, attempt to rise. "You did," she reassures soothingly. She waits for Octavia to say more. It was something most endearing about Niylah, she did not speak unless necessary, each word careful and succinct. It made what she did say more valuable.

Octavia loosens the knot in her mind a little more, eyes dancing across her surroundings. She was quite obviously in Arkadia, the artificial lights enhancing the enhancing the flat, neat surfaces that surrounded her, not detracting from the bleak grey of metal. She longed for the colors of the earth as she recounted her situation. She knew Azgeda was marching on Arkadia. Okay. She knew that Echo had damn near killed her at the ravine. Yeah. She knew she had warned _Skikru_. Great. What she could not work out was how she got from points one and two to point three. "How did I get here?" she heaved.

Niylah continues what she had been doing when Octavia first opened her eyes—using a cloth to clean her face, "A man brought you. _Trishanakru_. You're lucky, if he hadn't have found you—"

" _Ilian."_ The name comes organically, as Octavia sees him in her mind, suddenly clearer than before, lifting her from the forest floor, talking nonsense as they walked, shaking her as her heart stops. With his name comes not an image, but a taste, one that is melancholy and sour.

"Where is he, Niylah?"

The habitual crease between Niylah's eyebrows deepened, "He's here. In the Ark."

Octavia pushed Niylah's hands away and forced herself up with a groan.

Niylah forced down the shock that Octavia had the strength to sit up, "Octavia, no, you need to rest."

"You don't understand, _ah_ ," Octavia used her hands to physically lift her legs over the side of the gurney, "Come on, I'll explain on the way. We have to find him."


End file.
